US president Donald Trump has announced he wants Ukraine to pay for financial and military support by affording Washington access to the country’s vast but untapped rare earth minerals.
He said on Monday he wants “equalisation” from Ukraine for the US’ “close to $300 billion” in support.
“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Mr Trump said. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.”
The Kremlin jumped on the comments, saying it demonstrated the US is no longer willing to provide free aid to Kyiv, before adding, unsurprisingly, that it was against Mr Trump giving any help to Ukraine whatsoever.
Below, we look at where these resources are in Ukraine, and why Kyiv has struggled to mine these minerals.
Ukraine is sitting on one of Europe’s largest deposits of critical minerals, including lithium and titanium, much of which is untapped.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been trying to develop these resources, estimated to be worth more than £12 trillion, based on figures provided by Forbes Ukraine, for years.
In 2021, he offered outside investors tax breaks and investment rights to help mine these minerals. These efforts were suspended when the full-scale invasion started a year later.
Anticipating the notoriously transactional Mr Trump might take an interest in this, Mr Zelensky then placed the mining of these minerals into his victory plan, which was drawn up last year.
The minerals are vital for electric vehicles and other clean energy efforts, as well as defence production.
Estimates based on government documents suggest that Ukraine’s resources are also highly varied. Foreign Policy found that Ukraine held “commercially relevant deposits of 117 of the 120 most-used industrial minerals across more than 8,700 surveyed deposits”.
Included in that is half a million tonnes of lithium, none of which has been tapped. This makes Ukraine the largest lithium resource in Europe.
It is not surprising that Mr Trump appears keen on benefiting from this, especially as China remains a key player in the mining of minerals such as titanium.
But Vladimir Putin’s invasion has not only delayed Ukraine’s plans to mine these minerals, it has also led to much of these resource-rich areas being destroyed and then occupied.
